ROCKFORD — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is being sued for disability discrimination over the firing of an intellectually disabled employee whose performance faltered when bosses no longer gave him a written list of job tasks to do.

Wal-Mart contends William Clark was terminated for “repeated safety violations.”

At issue are workplace accommodations under the Americans With Disabilities Act. ADA requires employers to “provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities who are employees or applicants for employment, unless to do so would cause undue hardship.”

The suit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity alleges that Clark was terminated from the company’s 7219 Walton St. store in Rockford, where he was employed as a dairy/frozen food sales associate from 2007 to 2012, after managers stopped giving him written job instructions that allowed him to perform work.

“We strongly disagree with the allegations raised in the complaint,” the company, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, said in a written statement.

“Wal-Mart does not condone or tolerate discrimination of any kind, and our company has thousands of associates who regularly perform their jobs with reasonable accommodations which we have provided. Our review of the facts in this case show that at no time did Mr. Clark ever request a workplace accommodation, nor did he ever indicate that a disability interfered with him performing his job. We ended Mr. Clark’s employment for repeated safety violations.”

The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Rockford. The EEOC sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act after the two sides failed to reach a pre-litigation settlement.

“That accommodation had been the key to permitting Clark to successfully perform his job during and 18-year career at Wal-Mart and to his meeting the company’s performance expectations,” said John Rowe, EEOC district director in Chicago. “We determined that shortly after rescinding the accommodation, Wal-Mart began disciplining Mr. Clark for supposed performance issues that ultimately led to his termination.”